


is there anything that always means happiness?

by asiren (meliorismo)



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Gen, deaf!Clint, probably post-hawkeye v4 but before all new hawkeye, the glorious apparition of lucky the pizza dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 00:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4898776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meliorismo/pseuds/asiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Bishop and Clint Barton are people with a mission: bathe Lucky and (maybe) survive long enough to eat one or two pizzas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	is there anything that always means happiness?

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, i hate pizza w my soul and heart and only choose muzzarella bc, i swear to god, is the only pizza flavor that i know for sure that exists.  
> all my thanks & love to my lovely friend torisa, who accepted the Beta DutyTM w little or nothing antecedence and did an AMAZING job, especially when u remember that i wrote this fic when my english was real bad. (not that now is better. bc is not).

**is there anything that always mean happiness?**

a kate bishop & clint barton story

(with the glorious apparition of lucky, the pizza dog)

 

Kate is leaning on the wall — totally carefree —, dog’s shampoo _(_ _your puppy's fur always soft_ _!)_  on her right hand and hair dryer on the left. She’s wearing a mix of biker gang and juvenile delinquent clothes style, with a little bit of 70’s comedy movies inspiration. She looks beautiful as always. You love her so much.

“You comin’?” she asks and you _definitely_ know she’s talking with Lucky, because she never uses her soft voice with you. In Kate-Clint’s relationship (Clint-Kate?), there’s no space for too much sympathy  — or none at all, to be honest —, unless one of you is dying or worse (the second one happens so often that you are just _tired_. Normal people — you know, not _super_ people — probably would be surprised with the amount of things worse than death. Even you are surprised sometimes). It makes you feel sad, but not always, so you’re fine with it.

Lucky goes to her, completely ignorant of his watery destiny, and you almost feel sorry for him — and it’s an almost very well defined. It doesn’t last too long because you _know_ the dog would leave you in the first opportunity if Kate was not there (in fact, he already did it once, the traitor. _When your own dog is constantly ready to leave you, its’s clearly a sign that there’s something really wrong with you, man,_  Kate is always saying, because, of course, she’s still worse than Lucky. In the end, you hate them both).

You stay there, in the bathroom, asking yourself if this were to happen months ago,  would you be hearing the sound of water splashing on Lucky’s fur? would you be hearing Katie’s laugh and her screams of _stop running! lucky! it’s just a bath, you’re not being tortured_? You feel nostalgic for a moment, but quickly let it go. It’s been a while since you left behind the lamentation phase.

You (barely) walk to the living room, where a really big bathtub (made with a bowl that you’re sure had not been purchased) is strategically positioned in the middle of the free space, with a half-inside half-outside Lucky (who looks miserable, by the way). Katie is orbiting around, rubbing shampoo and spreading foam, deliberately ignoring a brush — you’re sure she took from _your bathroom_ when you weren’t looking  — full of soap and dog fur, forgotten in the middle of a particularly impressive puddle of water. How a dog can make such a mess is beyond your comprehension. You are not surprised at all. When you think about Katie, you always think about disorder — it’s totally inevitable. And it’s almost comforting, even knowing you will end up cleaning all the mess in the end.

But at least Lucky will smell like a clean dog, thank god. When you give him a bath, he always ends up smelling like cutlery because you only use dish soap — it’s ridiculous, you know, but it’s _totally_ impossible for Lucky to be more stinky than when he arrives from his morning walk, so you don’t really care.

When you — finally — look away from that disaster, you realize Kate is talking to you. She’s probably doing this for quite some time now (if her gesticulation state is any indication), which will probably be a pain in your ass because you’ll have to interrupt her and say that you aren’t using your hearing aid. She will probably be mad, giving you that look — the one that means _it's better get used to them soon, before they are necessary in a fight._ She’s right and you know it, but you don’t want to think about battles and wars right now.

“Katie” It sounded exasperated. “I'm not listening to you.”

“Oh” she stays silent for a while, problably embarrassed for speaking alone for so long. She shrugs and goes back to Lucky, apparently decided to dry him at all costs, and hopefully sharing your secret wish, which involves no thoughts about anything involving fights or Avengers or superheroes for now. You think maybe Katie is just tired like you. You both always had a good tune — even if occasionally is a little erratic, as well.

You are who you are and all these things.

You kneel by her side and hold Lucky still so Kate can finally properly use the hair dryer. He’s calmer than before and it surprises you a little — maybe the dog doesn’t prefer Kate after all. This would probably be a fucking plot twist, uh? You’d love it. Among all the last months twists, it would be nice to have a good one to break the type. After all, Lucky is _your_ dog. He should love you more than he loves Katie.

You gingerly touch her wrist to make her look at you. “Are you fine, Hawkeye?”

“I’m great, Hawkeye.” she smiles. “And you?”

“Good enough.”

“Pizza?”

“ _Definitively.”_

She laughs, shaking her head, and gets up.

“I ask for the food, you clean the mess?”

“This is thirty different ways unfair.”

“So sorry if I already have the phone in hand.”

“Katie!”

“Next time” she looks to you and smirks. You hardly need to read her lips to know what she’ll say. “use that device Stark gave you. Bye, honey.”

Kate wave her hands, that by far doesn’t appear to belong to a millionaire girl but to a very talented archer (surprise surprise, she’s both), and disappear in the kitchen. You look to all the water and the bathtub and Lucky, who’s resting in a corner.

“It’s all _your_ fault.” you grumble, but he barely gives you any attention. _Typical_ , you think and sighs, starting to put everything in place.

Katie reappears in the room forty minutes later, when the pizza arrives and everything is more or less dry. You give her your most famous disapproving look, the one she totally ignores in order to answer the door and pay the delivery guy.

“Muzzarella.” she smirks to you.

“Definitely not my favorite.”

“Nobody cares, Clint.” she says, absolutely petulant. “It’s _my_ favorite pizza.”

“Enjoy your pizza, ma’am.”

“Thanks, plebeian, I will.”

You take the soda in the fridge and throw the bottle for her to open, which immediately rewards you with a look that almost cries _do you want to fucking kill me_ , _Clint?_ You laugh, of course. She’s so _adorable._

“Attention, Hawkeye.”

“Fuck you, Hawkeye.” a break. “Asshole.”

Yeah, definitely. You love her with all your heart.

(no news under the sun, indeed)


End file.
